A Treasure Trail around Datchet

A Treasure Trail is a great way of exploring an area and making a family walk more interesting. We’ve done a few different ones now and always enjoy doing them. Our most recent one took us on a walk around Datchet, hunting for clues along the way.

 

 

The trails are all self-guided and there are more than 1000 different ones available on the Treasure Trails website covering different locations across the UK. Each trail costs £9.99 for the trail booklet . This can be downloaded and printed multiple times so each person can have their own booklet. The trail booklets all have a unique reference number at the back. When you complete the trail, you can submit your answer (along with that number) on the Treasure Trails website and be entered into the monthly £100 prize draw.

 

 

Each Treasure Trail follows a theme. The Datchet trail is a Spy Mission Trail where we had to crack the deactivation code to thwart a Cold War spy’s plan to destroy the roads passing through the village. We entered each of the clues we found along the way into the answer grid on the back and crossed off numbers and letters in the combination box to crack the code. If you get stuck along the way, you can text to request the answer to up to three clues. We had to do this for a couple of clues this time around.

 

 

The trail took us on a circular walk, starting and finishing at the Horton Road car park. We walked past the station and then along a short stretch of the River Thames, where we stopped for a “nic-nic” (as Thomas calls it) before heading back towards the main road.

 

 

One of the things I like about doing a Treasure Trail is how it makes you really look closely at things whilst trying to find the clues. I did one a few years ago in the town where I grew up. Even though I was very familiar with the roads that we walked along, there were still a few things that we spotted along the way that I’d never noticed before!

 

 

Of all the trails we’ve done so far, I have to say this was my least favourite. The roads through Datchet are all very busy and there was only one pedestrian crossing along the way. There were several clues on the greens forming islands between the roads so we had to cross a few times.  This was quite stressful with a young child and a toddler in the buggy. The only place I felt safe enough to let Thomas out of the buggy was in the churchyard. Otherwise we were either next to a main road or the river.

 

 

 

Sophie enjoyed looking for the clues though. She’s getting better at solving them by herself now.  It was good to get out for a family walk together as well. Next time, we’ll hopefully explore somewhere that’s a little easier to navigate with children in tow though!

 

 

Please note this isn’t a collaborative post – we’ve always purchased our own trail sheets. Prices are correct at the time of posting.